FACT, FICTION AND GATEWAY TO THE TOTENUNIVERSE

The Big Bang Theory – Season Six

Or Friends with PhDs. When I saw a scene in which Penny sat down with the Other Two drinking wine and discussing partners I had a feeling this would be the last episode I watch of TBBT. Remember the glory days when Penny was the socially aware, but academically dumb hallmate contrasting with the socially inept, but academically brilliant Sheldon and Leonard? Throw in Howard and Raj to up the ante and you had a comedy that was as funny and uniquely brilliant as any in sixty years of television.

The Big Bang Theory was up there with the best of them and for four seasons found comedy in the most obscure places. For me, the stand out moment, the scene in which I had to stop the DVD to prevent myself from choking to death with laughter, was Sheldon’s creation of a robotic version of himself in order to prolongue his own life. But anyone who ever watched TBBT had their own favourite moments, their own favourite scenes and quotes.

Any analysis of a long running television comedy series would conclude that they can’t last forever, there are only so many jokes you can extract from a pathological genius trying to explain quantum physics to a farm girl, or a man who can’t talk to women, or the little guy living with the detached voice of his mother. Inevitably the rot would set in and the whole programme would atrophy and evolve into the final iteration of television comedy: the inter-relationship.

Robot Sheldon.

Friends had the franchise on inter-relationships. The thickos, the outsiders, the dorks, they were all here, running through the same comedic algorithms and permutations week in week out. Watching The Big Bang Theory reduced to yet another comedy about a group of misfits falling in love was a sad moment. Time to move on and find another gem, another golden moment in the timeline of television. And when you consider comedies as good as this only come along once in a blue moon who knows how long we’ll have to wait for the next one, or what form it takes.